Description
Analyzing existing data sets provides researchers an efficient and cost-effective method for answering critical research questions. Grants for Secondary Analyses of Data on Child Care and Early Education will provide funding to address key questions that will inform both policymakers and future research. Existing data, which may have been collected for other purposes, have the potential to answer questions relevant to the goals and outcomes of the programs administered through the Administration for Children and Families, and in particular the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF). Data of various types and from a number of sources may be mined for these purposes. Some examples of national datasets that are candidates for secondary analyses include, but are not limited to: the National Survey of Early Care and Education, the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, National Longitudinal Study of Youth, and the Fragile Families and Child Well-Being Study. In addition, national-level or state-level administrative and systems data (e.g., ACF-801 Monthly Child Care Data; State Workforce Registries; Data on Quality Ratings and Improvement Systems; State Licensing and Program Monitoring Data) and primary research and evaluation data are all candidates for secondary analyses. The datasets may be used by themselves, in conjunction with other data or combined to best address the key research questions proposed. Research partnerships that include the CCDF administrator, Quality Rating and Improvement System (QRIS) implementation leaders, other State and local owners of relevant administrative and systems data may be particularly fruitful for gaining access to datasets and addressing important research questions. In order to move the field forward regarding these questions, it is essential to assess the evidence already contained in existing data. The specific goals of the Secondary Analyses of Data on Child Care and Early Education Grants are: To address issues of current relevance to decision makers at the local, State, and national levels. Topics of particular interest for these grants are: (1) measurement of quality; (2) subsidy policies and parents’ access to high quality early care and education for their children; (3) qualifications, certification and credentialing of child care teachers and caregivers and its relationship to quality care and interactions between caregivers/teachers and children in support of children’s development, especially for those working with infants and toddlers; (4) interplay between family and child characteristics, employment status, and choices of care; (5) child care characteristics and child and family outcomes; (6) implementation assessment (or process evaluation) of programs / initiatives; (7) effectiveness of state systems in monitoring and maintaining standards of care, and relationship between qualification of monitors/inspectors and the effectiveness of monitoring systems; (8) cost-benefit / cost-effectiveness analyses of child care initiatives; (9) collaboration, coordination, and alignment of services among early care and education programs; (10) characteristics of early care and education programs (center-based and home-based) and their relationship to indicators of program quality; and, (11) characteristics of early care and education (ECE) programs (type of ECE, affordability, flexibility) available to children from low-income households, of diverse race, ethnicity, and primary language, and of different ages. Grantees are required to produce at least one research-to-policy or –practice brief based on the findings from the secondary analyses by the end of the project period to be disseminated broadly to policy and research audiences and present such findings at a professional/national meeting or conference, e.g., Head Start Research Conference, National Association for the Education of Young children (NAEYC), Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management (APPAM), Child Care Policy Research Consortium (CCPRC).